


Don't Ask Questions

by RingingSilence



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: AU where everyone more-or-less gets along, I wanted weird humor so here it is, Nine Times Out of Ten the Answer is Fire, Sort Of, Spoilers for Season 3, a little feels-y towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23956900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RingingSilence/pseuds/RingingSilence
Summary: Everyone knew that the Archives were where all of the weirdest people in the Institute were found. Even Connor, still fresh to the security team, already knew to expect if someone came in with something peculiar it was going to be someone from down there. Corkscrews, ancient tape recorders, fire extinguishers… his boss Terry claimed the head archivist came in with an axe once.Then, Jonathan Sims set off the metal detector.(or: after MAG 104 I needed some humor and buddy-archivists)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 228





	Don't Ask Questions

Everyone knew that the Archives were where all of the weirdest people in the Institute were found. Even Connor, still fresh to the security team, already knew to expect if someone came in with something peculiar it was going to be someone from down there. Corkscrews, ancient tape recorders, fire extinguishers… his boss Terry claimed the head archivist came in with an axe once. 

Then, Jonathan Sims set off the metal detector. 

Connor sent a wary glance Terry’s way but the old man just sighed. “Empty your pockets and take off any metallic jewelry.”

“That’s surely not necessary. I’ll just—“

“Mr. Sims, please remove any metal objects and step through.”

“Look, you didn’t look twice at the axe—“

“Mr. Bouchard has heightened security since that murder in your office. Please, empty your pockets and step through.”

With a scowl that could curdle milk Mr. Sims gingerly took off his jacket to reveal…well, an armory. Knives of varying widths and conditions hung from a leather harness crossing his chest. A row of what appeared to be cigarette lighters lined his belt. A flyswatter was stuck through the back of his belt and a wooden stake was strapped to his thigh. About the most normal-looking weapon on his person was a single revolver hanging in a plain holster on the opposite hip from the stake. 

To Connor’s bewilderment, Terry barely raised a brow. “We’ll have to check with Elias before you’ll be permitted to bring weapons into the archives.”

“Fine,” Sims spat. “Just be quick about it.”

Elias, bizarrely enough, told them to let him through armory-included. Sims grumbled as he shrugged his coat back on, something about ‘third time kidnapped in a month’ and shuffled towards the stairs. The door opened before he reached it and Detective Tonner poked her head out. “You’re late.”

“Sorry Daisy, I got a bit held up in security.”

Her cold, predatory eyes darted over Connor and he resisted the urge to shiver. “I see…” she murmured. 

The next time the head archivist left it was with her. She stepped through the metal detectors with a casual stretch, holding her hands well above the scanners until she was on the other side. Right behind her Sims performed a much less subtle version of the same stretch. Connor heard the clink of metal come from Sims’ sleeve but when he sent a panicked look at Terry his supervisor just shook his head and waved them through. When he asked about all the weapons being carried around by ostensibly a bunch of low-tier researchers, the most Connor managed to get in the way of explanation was: “the archivists are paranoid.”

Terry was drilling Connor on security protocols a few days later when the door to the archives creaked open and the newest archival assistant, Ms. Hussain, strode towards the exit. Before the door had even gotten the chance to close behind her Mr. Blackwood shoved it open.

“Basira, don’t forget a fire extinguisher!”

She turned back with a blank look. “Am I going to need one?”

Mr. Blackwood shuffled sheepishly. “You’re looking into the case about the graves eating people, right?”

“Yes, which sounds like the Buried.”

“Um…Jon thinks the Corruption could be involved because of all of the maggots Mr. Brown saw. If that’s the case it’s better to be safe than sorry. Of course, you could also take a corkscrew but when there’s that many you’re probably in trouble so…”

“I have a lighter, just in case,” she tried to reassure him. Still, he held out a lightly-dented fire extinguisher and she took it from him with a tight smile. “How many of these are down there?”

“Enough. Tim jokes that we’ll be finding them for years, but you know: better to be safe than eaten by worms.” He giggled nervously.

Ms. Hussain just nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

She turned to leave again. She almost made it out the door before Mr. Blackwood called out again. “O-oh, Basira! You’ve still got that book from Daisy, right? If something happens and you fall into one of the graves you’ll need something to lead you out.”

She pulled a beaten leather-bound book from her pocket. “I’ve got it covered. Thank you, Martin.”

Mr. Blackwood ducked back into the stairwell, Ms. Hussain escaped out the front doors and Connor looked to Terry for some sort of explanation. The older man just shrugged with a tired roll of his eyes. “It’s better not to ask.”

A few days later Connor was alone at the front desk. He was startled out of checking the security cams (one of the new interns had just flown out of Artefact Storage) by a tap on the desk. The woman smiling down at him seemed pleasant enough but there was something…off about her. Something about her stillness, or her wide-eyed stare perhaps.

“Yes, hello! Is the Archivist in?”

“The head archivist?” She nodded eagerly. “I can call down and check.”

“Oh yes, tell him that Nikola wishes to see him!”

He could feel her continue to stare as he turned away to make the call. The line rang long enough that he wondered if he ought to simply hang up and send the visitor on her way before it was finally picked up.

“’Archives, Tim Stoker speaking.”

The feeling of eyes on the back of his neck made his voice shake ever so slightly. “H-hello, this is the security desk. Is Mr. Sims there?”

“Ah, bad luck. He passed out in the breakroom five minutes ago. What did you need?”

“I have a Ms. Nikola here to see him. I can ask her to come back if—“

“Nikola?” Tim’s voice turned cold, almost frighteningly so. 

“Um…y-yes, do you want me to send her away?”

There was a pause, then: “tell her he’ll be up shortly.”

Stoker hung up. Connor turned back to find Nikola in precisely the same position as when he’d turned away. He suppressed a shudder. “U-um…he’ll be right up.”

“Oh good!”

She didn’t move. She stared unblinkingly at him with that stiff, overwide smile and was she even breathing--?

The stairwell door slammed open. Timothy Stoker, the cool collected flirt of the Archives, looked straight at the visitor with a snarl on his lips. He had an axe in one hand and he flipped on a lighter in the other. 

“Oh dear,” Nikola sighed, smile not budging an inch, and bolted out the front doors. Tim was right on her heels, letting out a battle cry as he vaulted the security counter to surpass the metal detectors. Martin Blackwood roared after him, carrying what looked like a _flamethrower_ , and they vanished out onto the street. Connor looked on in stunned silence before remembering he should probably call for back-up to stop the archival assistants from immolating the visitor and he reached for the alarm. 

A firm hand landed on his wrist and he spun around to find Elias Bouchard, head of the Magnus Institute, standing next to him. He smiled his usual calm, pleasant smile. “That won’t be necessary. Just give me a call when they return, or if they are gone more than an hour or two.” 

Connor could only nod mutely. Elias patted his arm and turned to leave.

“Oh.” He turned back wearing a little frown. “And don’t tell Jonathan Sims about this, if you please.”

Forty-five minutes later, Mr. Stoker and Mr. Blackwood returned minus the axe and absolutely covered in ash. They oozed satisfaction as they cheerily checked the flamethrower back through security and wandered back down to their department. There was no one for Connor to turn to for answers this time so he just stared at the closed front doors until someone actually normal came in and ignored the trail of sooty footprints passing his desk.

Connor was chugging coffee in the breakroom when he overhead a pair from Artefact Storage talking in the corner.

“So I know I shouldn’t have been in there so late,” one of them said. “But my thesis is due in two weeks and I just needed a few pictures of the vampire teeth, anyway. It was probably…two in the morning? Everyone except security had gone home and it was extra-creepy down there, but I knew where I was going so I took a torch and went right in. I found the teeth right away so I pulled out my phone to take a few pictures.”

“Alright, spooky start.”

“That was when things got proper creepy. No one was around-- I’d seen the sign-in sheet-- but as I was standing there trying to decide if I was going to take the picture there or borrow the teeth and risk Sonja finding out…I heard a voice.”

“Was it that awful coffin again?”

“No, this was real words! ‘Hello, hello?’ I panicked and dropped the torch and the teeth. I swear I thought I was going to have a heart attack!”

“Did you run for it?”

“Not yet. I just stood there, waiting for it to come again. It did, and it just sounded so…normal? I thought maybe one of the new interns had gotten lost in there so I picked up my torch and followed it. It was coming from near the back, where that weird table used to be. My torchlight landed on the broken shards, catching on the shadows like teeth, and suddenly someone whispered right in my ear: ‘I can see you’. I turned around and there was Sasha, the first one. I dropped my torch and ran. Didn’t stop until I was back on the street. Sonja gave me a real earful about ‘mishandling artefacts’ when I got in the next afternoon but I’m glad I didn’t stick around.”

“Sasha? You mean that Sasha from Archives that no one’s heard from since that old guy was murdered downstairs?”

“No, the first one. The one that transferred from Artefacts to the ‘Archives.” 

“It’s the same Sasha.”

“No way, they don’t look anything alike!”

There was a sharp snap as the room’s other occupant, Melanie King from Archives, slammed the fridge door and rushed out. Worried, Connor followed her out. 

He reached the doors to Artefact Storage just as she disappeared inside. Sonja was manning the desk outside and she gave him a bemused look as he stepped closer to the double doors. The lights in the hallway were bright and the echoes of people moving about the other parts of the Institute reached them but absolute eerie stillness hung over the corridor. Connor reached for the heavy-looking handles. 

He couldn’t open the door. He couldn’t even touch it, paralyzed by a creeping fear.

“Artefact Storage’ll have that effect on you.”

He jumped, having almost forgotten that Sonja was there. She merely smiled and kept typing away. It turned out he needn’t have bothered: Ms. King returned a few minutes later with a grim expression. She didn’t look at either of them as she stormed away. Connor looked to Sonja for any sort of explanation but she just shrugged. 

That would probably have been the last he thought about it but Terry called out with the flu and Connor volunteered to take his shift…watching Artefact Storage. He didn’t have to actually go inside thankfully: he set up shop at Sonja’s desk and tried to ignore the unnerving silence and the big double-doors looming in the corner of his eye. 

A little after midnight, footsteps began echoing down the dark corridor towards him. Casually, carefully, he leaned forward to look and settled his hand on his phone. 

From out of the lightless hallway, Melanie King emerged. Then Mr. Sims, Mr. Stoker and finally Mr. Blackwood. They waved their ID’s at Connor without looking at him, completely focused on those ominous doors. Melanie reached for a handle and one by one they filed inside. The silence after the door closed was heavy and expectant and Connor listened intently for any sounds from within. For ten long minutes nothing moved. He’d almost worked up the courage to go see if something had happened when the door creaked open and the group filtered back out. Sims didn’t wait for the others, charging back towards the lobby with stiff shoulders and bowed head. Ms. King lingered at the door, holding it open for Stoker and Blackwood. Stoker’s eyes were glassy and silent tears streamed down Blackwood’s face. He sniffled and for a moment Connor forgot about the big empty hallway and the room he’d been too scared to even enter.

“Is everything alright, Mr. Blackwood,” Connor asked.

The trio jumped. Ms. King shot Stoker a guilty look and he opened his mouth to speak but Blackwood beat him to it.

“Fine, everything’s fine.” He cleared his throat and gave Connor a watery smile. “We’re, uh…we’ll just…be going. Good night.”

The group followed Sims out. In the silence that settle back in their absence, Connor realized the air smelled very faintly of wood smoke.

No one mentioned seeing a ‘Sasha’ again.

Most of the time all of the Institute’s mail made it to wherever it was supposed to be going but one afternoon a package somehow ended up at Connor’s station. Rather than leave his post or ask someone to bring it down to the archives, because of course it was for the archives, he called Mr. Sims. “We have a package up here at the front desk for you. It doesn’t have a return address. Do you want us to hold onto it?”

Sims grumbled. “No, no I’ll come pick it up.”

Ten minutes later the man slouched into the lobby, squinting irritably in the warm light. Connor expected him to take the misplaced mail and return to his lair. Instead Sims frowned down at it, turning it over a few times before peeling the paper wrapping back. 

He dropped it with a cut-off shout, earning a few curious glances as he stared down at the partially-opened package. 

“Um…Mr. Sims?”

Sims glared at the little square of paper and gingerly picked it up again. Connor got a glimpse of the cardboard cover of a children’s book, of the words _Guest for_ before fire was suddenly engulfing it. Jon dropped the burning book on the hard tiled floor of the lobby and watched soundlessly until it was nothing but a pile of ash. A pair from Research paused to whisper to each other while it happened but if Sims noticed his audience he didn’t acknowledge them, just standing there playing with a gold lighter. Once the final embers had sizzled out he deliberately ground his shoe into the ashes, let out a satisfied huff and trotted back down the stairs to the Archives. The new security guard Connor was supposed to be training gaped as Connor tiredly snatched a newspaper from the desk, swept the ashes into a waste bin and went back to showing him the security cameras. Some things, he'd learned, were just beyond explanation.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a week or two ago and hoped it might brighten someone's evening. Is anyone else enjoying season five? :)


End file.
